


cant & wont

by flying_siphonophore



Series: Hit It 'til It Breaks [23]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Cheating, F/M, Flirting, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Romantic Friendship, Self-Acceptance, Self-Doubt, Self-Esteem Issues, That Is Resolved, mild toxic behavior between reader and keishin, no beta we die like men, the cheating is just one kiss btw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:22:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28975797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flying_siphonophore/pseuds/flying_siphonophore
Summary: definitions:cant : the expression or repetition of conventional or trite opinions or sentiments; hypocritical and sanctimonious talk, typically of a moral, religious, or political nature.wont : one’s customary behavior in a particular situation; make or be or become accustomed.
Relationships: Ukai Keishin/Reader, Ukai Keishin/You
Series: Hit It 'til It Breaks [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1904287
Comments: 8
Kudos: 42





	cant & wont

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mintmatcha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mintmatcha/gifts).



> this is a Secret Santa fic for my friend mint! And I'm crossposting from tumblr as usual uwu

“You can go for it, y’know?”

Ukai drops his eyes immediately to the ashtray in front of him. He takes his time dragging a deep smoky breath before flicking his cigarette against the porcelain. The sounds of the bar fills the space between him and Takinoue, Shimada laughing drunkenly at some dumb joke you make where you both stand at the bar.

Ukai blows his breath out. “I dunno what you’re talking about.”

Takinoue groans, the sound edged with humor. Ukai can feel the beginnings of a blush on the back of his neck but takes a deep sip of beer, eyes rising to the ceiling. Anywhere but towards any of his friends.

“Dude, seriously. I know you like her. It’s fine.” It’s not. At least not to Keishin. His eyes wander the bar before timidly catching his friend’s eye across the table. Takinoue is leaning back casually, beer mug in hand and giving him an exasperated, though reassuring smile on his face. “We haven’t dated in years, dude. You should just go for it.”

Ukai grunts around his cigarette, and turns his head away when you and Shimada return with more beer for the table, your thigh and shoulder pushing up against his as you slide back into your seat with a heavy drop, giggling at some story Shimada was telling you.

He suspects Takinoue isn’t as over it as he says he is, and therefore hurting his friend by pursuing you, as well as potentially harming your friendship--you, who is one of his best friends but also the ex of one of his best friends--would be disastrous, he knows it.

And even though he knows this, he lets you take little bits and pieces of him just for a moment of pretend. Separating from Takinoue and Shimada, you eventually end up linking arms with him, your fingers woven together and your head against his shoulder, an action not so uncommon on nights like these. He’s happy to support you, and it's easier to be greedy when there’s no one else watching.

He’s smiling around his cigarette as you struggle through your laughter, trying to drunkenly recount whatever story Shimada had been telling you. He’s a little lost, but does his best to listen. You lean heavily against him, and before he can think about it his arm is winding over your shoulder, his fingers still woven with yours across your chest.

You pause on the empty street. The store is behind him and your family’s house, like it’s always been, is directly across the street. The road is empty, only the two of you and your shadows beneath the humming street lamp.

“I don’t wanna go to bed,” you complain, leaning your head back into his bicep to look up at him. He laughs, lashes lowered to look over your cute pout and glossy gaze. His heart thumps in his chest, and he resists the urge to invite you up to the little apartment he moved into above the shop.

“You should go sleep this beer off.” His voice is a little hoarse from chain smoking and drinking heavily.

You lean your chin on his chest and give him a playful stink eye. “What if I wanna hang out with you more, Kei?”

Your arms wrap around his middle, and you both sway there in the middle of the street, wrapped up in each other and a moment that, under normal circumstances, he can’t have with you. He can’t. He can’t he can’t he--

“Can’t,” he gruffs, giving you a hug, dropping a kiss on the crown of your head. “Got an early day tomorrow.”

Your sound of displeasure makes him smile, and despite every cell in his body revolting, he steps away from you, playfully pushing his palm against your forehead, backwards towards your home. You whine and lean, stumbling away with a giggle.

You give him a wide, lovely smile over your shoulder as you part. Ukai pauses in his backwards steps, brows rising.

“G’night, Kei,” you sing, waving and veering off towards your home, turning to wave again after fumbling with the gate on this side of the street. He waves back and turns when you finally disappear into the shadows of the wall around your house.

“Fuck,” he grumbles, shaking his head and shuffling for another cigarette, walking around the side of the store towards the stairs in the back.

Why did Takinoue have to encourage him? Ukai was perfectly fine living his life looking and never touching. He’d easily come to terms with his loss of potentially being with you when you accepted Takinoue’s request to date all that time ago. To put it crassly, the well has been poisoned--not in the sense that you’re somehow lesser for dating and breaking up with a friend and still being around, but the fact that dating _another_ person in the friend group is simply too messy. It’s too complicated, he’s too infatuated and there’s too much history muddying the water for it to feel possible.

And so he continues to watch and want but never act, going through the motions of working during the day and drinking at night, walking you home and getting his fill and denying you every time you ask for just a little bit more. Because he can’t give it to you, he can’t, no matter how much he wants to.

Things change on a night where everything feels the same. You’re quieter than usual on the walk home, but tucked up into his side like always. His hand feels warm in yours where you press it to your chest, arm draped over your shoulder. He tilts his head back while he smokes, relishing this quiet time with you through the ease of cigarette smoke and the tingle of beer.

You come to a pause between your homes, and when you make no move to disentangle, he’s suddenly hit with the realization it’s always him pushing you away during the end of the night. He swallows and stiffens, plucking his cigarette from his lips to say something down to you.

Your head is also tilted up towards him, putting your face closer to his than he expects. Your eyes are heavy with an emotion that makes his stomach flip pleasantly. His words are caught in his throat, feeling the sting of a blush crawl over his cheeks when you squeeze his hand.

You push up on your toes, squeeze his hand, and your lips press to his.

Ukai gasps and pulls away from you with a wet suck. He groans, and you make a sound of confusion, snapping your hands back towards your chest as if burned.

“We can’t--” He starts, waving his hands between you. The words burn like the dislodged cherry from his dropped cigarette.

“S-Sorry!” You laugh, but it doesn’t sound at all amused or natural. Ukai winces, can’t help looking at you and the way you hug yourself. “Sorry, Kei! I guess I, uh, misread some things.”

You grimace and sigh heavily, an exasperated sound. He can see how shaken you are, and he is, too, but his limbs ache with the desire to hug you back in close, to kiss you again in all the ways he’s only dreamt of.

“Just...forget about that!” You say, voice pitched to a faux level of calmness. Ukai finds himself nodding along, staring at you as you continue to step backwards, retreating from him and this moment beneath the shop’s awning.

The problem is, he can’t. It plagues him for weeks after, and even after that. He can tell you feel awkward. You don’t hang off of him as you did before, giving him space. Struggle to meet his eye or smile like you usually do, and that hurts, but maybe it's for the best? Maybe it’s worth the hurt he feels in his heart for this boundary to be set and maintained for once in his fucking life, even if it’s not a boundary he wants at all.

Yet, he’s weak. As time is wont to do, the awkwardness wanes with the passing moons, and even slower does the space between you close again, until another night of heavy drinking leads to under his arm again, right where he thinks you should be. Leads to more, to him pinning you to the wall just beside the steps leading up to his apartment, kissing you slow and thorough, drinking you in, hands cupping your jaw, feeling your moan vibrate through his hands and across his sensitive lips.

It happens often, now. Almost every night he goes out to drink and you’re there. How can it not, now that he knows what it’s like? Has a taste of what he can’t have but has wanted for so long?

Pushing you away devolves into something arguably worse than before. “We can’t,” he breathes against your mouth, disengaging with a wet sound not so unlike the first time, but slower and more deliberate, a wet sound that’s almost hypnotizing and calls for him to do it again.

You sigh, fists in his shirt tugging him closer. The kiss lasts longer after that, but slows, tainted by his reluctance. Just like everything else between you.

And you pull away and smile up at him. This smile isn’t so different from the one you faked that first night, but there’s a melancholy to it that makes something as acrid as the smoke from his cigarettes fill his gut.

“Yeah,” you whisper, curling your lips in and averting your eyes. It's you who disengages this time, sliding out from between him and the wall, taking a deep breath like you’re breathing fresh air for the first time once you’re free from between his arms.

You glance over at him, and there’s something to your gaze that feels more guarded than before. Ukai swallows nervously, looking you over.

“Goodnight,” you say, disappearing around the corner with hurried clicks of your shoes across concrete, leaving him alone once again.

Like everything about you, he finds himself haunted by that moment. In bed alone, in the early morning out in the fields with his family, sitting behind the counter of the shop. Even when he’s hanging out with you and the boys, he sees it every time you look at him. The uncharacteristic coolness reflecting in your gaze, the rush to get away from him in your steps, your hands clenched at your hips.

And yet it’s like you’re a massive star, helplessly drawing him ever closer. It’s hard to resist the might and pull of your wanting glances and empty palms. He finds his fingers tentatively dipping in between yours again, finds the weight of you leaning into his side, and he thinks if this goes on he might just be consumed by you, pulled into your fiery atmosphere and ripped into nothing so long as being nothing means he can continue to fuel some part of your confusing desire for _him._

But something keeps holding him in place. Some part of him hovers just shy of that event horizon, and he doesn’t think he’s the only one beginning to resist.

The next few times he goes out with the boys your absence is clear and noticeable. It always is when you’re gone, but you haven’t joined them in multiple days. It’s like you take his heart with you, an empty hole in his chest where he can still feel his heart beating, but like it’s only an echo of how it feels when you’re around.

“She’s with her new boy toy,” Shimada says to him when he finally, finally builds up the courage and asks, voice slurred from drinking. They’re all standing outside post-bar hopping, smoking and preparing to go home.

Ukai almost chokes on his cigarette. “Her w- _ack_ -what?” He gasps, casting a glance between Takinoue and Shimada.

Takinoue says nothing, but Shimada keeps talking. "Y-Yeah, he’s kind of a knob. But she said he makes her laugh?” Shimada laughs a little and shrugs, sharing a glance with the other blonde. “Which I guess is good.”

“She says he makes her laugh cuz he doesn’t make her cum,” Takinoue grumbles crassly around his cigarette. Ukai grimaces, staring down at the cherry of his own, where his hand hangs limp by his hip. He jerks in surprise when the blonde beside him nudges him. “I thought you were gonna ask her out.”

Ukai bristles, once more glancing between his friends. They both look at him expectantly. “I never said that!” He snaps back, his cheeks stinging hot.

From his place crouched against the wall of the building, Shimada sighs, features drooping with drunk exasperation. “I mean...she’s been _hoping_ you would. You knew that, right?”

He knows. He knows, he knows, he knows, he _knows._ He’s seen it, felt it, acted upon it with you. Despite how much he tells himself he shouldn’t, that he can’t, he _knows._

“Man, you’ve gotta stop being such a bitch,” Takinoue sighs, knocking his head back against the building behind them. “Just ask her out, everyone will fucking feel better when you do.”

“But--You--” Ukai feels like a cat hissing and arching his back in threat, and Takinoue and Shimada are big, sleepy dogs that don’t give a fuck. And they don’t.

“I am _giving_ you permission to fuck my ex,” Takinoue slurs out, sending him a significant look, looking him right in the eye. He snags Ukai’s hoodie at the shoulder and playfully shakes him back and forth. “In fact, I _want_ you to fuck her! Because she’s practically begging you for it!” Shimada starts cackling and Ukai feels like he’s blushing hotter than a sunburn.

He tugs himself from Takinoue’s grasp. “Stop! How do _you_ know that?” He snaps back, sweating hard under his jacket despite the chill in the air.

Takinoue and Shimada both continue to laugh. “Cuz it’s all she can fucking talk about, dude!” Shimada yells playfully, pushing himself up clumsily against the opposite alley wall. “When you’re not around, she’s sighing over your dumb Instagram and fluffing up all happy when you text her back. She doesn’t give a fuck about that dude, no matter what she tells us.”

Takinoue laughs, but it doesn’t sound very amused. “She’s pretty mad at you right now, though. Why’s that?” Ukai doesn’t like the side-eye look the other blond cuts him from behind a plume of cigarette smoke.

“Couldn’t say,” he gripes back, turning his head away from his friends.

“Uh-huh,” Takinoue hums, making Shimada snort. Ukai’s ears burn.

You start to bring him around, and Keishin hates it. He’s not welcoming, he’s not gracious, and it’s obvious. He’s moody, silent, snappish, even when you hiss at him to stop being rude. The other guys at least make an effort, but he finds it nearly impossible. The man is insufferably nice, too, goofy in a way that could be funny if Ukai got to know him, but he knows deep down he’s already decided that he doesn’t want to.

And you act like you’re smitten, but he can see the weight of your distaste on your shoulders. You smile and giggle and give the guy a little peck on the cheek now and then, but you’re withdrawn and disengaged. You keep catching Keishin’s eye and looking away with silent sighs. The more beer you drink, the longer you hold his gaze, and it burns him. His hands itch to hold you, to have you by _his_ side instead.

It sucks walking home with the both of you. He almost preferred it when you weren’t around because at least he could be alone. You entertain your boyfriend’s drunken ramblings, but Keishin can tell you don’t really care that much. Not like when you walked alone with him, both of you holding on to not just each other, but each others’ words.

“B-Babe.” The three of you pause. Keishin grimaces with you as your boyfriend sags against you. You make a sound of alarm, knees buckling under his weight and Ukai jumps forward, yanking your boyfriend up and onto his shoulder

“Be fuckin’ careful,” he growls at the man, hitching him up against him and helping him walk further towards your home.

“God, I don’t think my parents will let me bring him inside,” you hiss to yourself, fumbling with your phone, squinting at the bright screen.

The words Ukai speaks next taste as acrid as the burning smoke in his lungs. “He can crash at my place.”

He can immediately see the hesitation in your face. “Keishin, you don’t have to, I can call--”

“I said it’s fine.” Ukai grunts, hitching your barely conscious partner up again. You fall silent at his clipped, irritated growl. The silence between you grows stagnant, interrupted by your boyfriend’s slurred words of endearment to you. You barely respond, just patting his back. Your eyes meet Keishin’s over your boyfriend’s head, and he has to turn away, the emotion in your eyes too damning for his heart.

It takes the both of you to get your boyfriend up the stairs to Ukai’s apartment. “Oh my god, dude, I know you can walk,” you hiss from behind him. Ukai snorts, and grins when he hears you laugh in exasperation.

“Are you even pushing back there?” He gripes playfully, your boyfriend’s arms hooked over his shoulders.

“ _Yes_ ,” you groan, Ukai snickering while he digs into his pocket for his keys.

Your boyfriend is deposited on Ukai’s couch front down, face angled towards the floor. You snatch the small trash can from the bathroom and place it below his face.

The two of you stand for a while, staring down at your boyfriend snoring and limp. You look up at him, eyes glittering under the light from above. “Thank you, Kei. You didn’t have to do this.”

He shrugs. “Wanted to.” He didn’t actually want your boyfriend in his apartment, but he wanted to help you. He jerks his head towards his small kitchenette. “You want some water?”

You nod, sitting with a sigh at the small two-seater table by the window on the other side of the fridge. Ukai can’t help admiring you while he fills two glasses at his sink. You’re leaning your cheek against your hand, sleepy eyes wandering away from your snoring partner and towards him instead. You don’t even realize he’s watching you rove your eyes up his body until your eyes meet his. The connection feels like a zap of electricity, his hair standing on end and his neck suddenly feeling hot.

You quickly look away and dig your fingers into your eyes with a sigh.

“Here,” he whispers, setting a glass in front of you before he sits himself down across from you. Once upon a time this wasn’t such a stressful place to be with you, when feelings weren’t so obvious and hurt, and hours could be spent together talking and laughing and sobering up. Sometimes you even skipped going out to instead watch movies together or bring him dinner when he’d been working long hours.

But he doesn’t get any of that now, and after quietly thanking him, you sit in a silence that he hates. Your snoring boyfriend breaks that silence, and when Ukai finally glances at you, he sees the blatant distaste, clear and unfettered unlike any other expression tonight from you, and he can’t help snorting.

Your gaze snaps to his from where it had been focused over his shoulder. “Shut up,” you hiss playfully. He sips his water and ignores the light kick of your foot against his knee under the table.

“I didn’t say anything,” he grumbles, pointedly ignoring your gaze, his lips pulled taut with amusement.

“You laughed!” You whisper.

He can’t help snickering now, leaning forward. “W-What? Gotta speak up.” He holds his hand up to his ear, dodging your swatting hand with a wide grin, failing to suppress the laughter threatening to burst from his chest. You’re giggling softly, draped across his tiny table, and the release of tension between you is palpable.

With a sigh, he gestures over his shoulder with a thumb. “How do you sleep next to that? Is he always that loud?”

You wipe your eyes, your smile suddenly falling. You glance up at him, looking him over curiously. “Uh...I don’t.” His brows arch and you sniff, turning your eyes out the window. “Not that it’s any of your business who I do and don’t sleep with!” Your tone is light and airy, and you lean back and cross your legs with an air of casualness that both annoys him and is obviously feigned. You’re right, he doesn’t, but some sort of morbid curiosity takes over his tongue.

“Have you fucked?” He leans forward, watching you shift in your seat. Your gaze flicks back to him, and it’s something searing and aching in him, both delicious and scary in the way it coils inside him as he looks back at you.

You move slowly, leaning forward into the small space that is the tabletop. You come closer, eyes heavy, your lips pouting. “Why do you want to know?” Your voice dances through his ears, lilted in a way that could be flirtatious, could be just playful, could be probing. Maybe all of it.

And he’s still a little drunk, and your words about it not being his business have left him completely when he decides to run his mouth a little more.

He shrugs. “You just don’t seem to be that into him.”

You suck your cheeks in, and he grins at your failed attempt to hide your smile. “How would you know if I’m into him or not? You only met him tonight. And I’m dating him, so--” You roll your eyes and shrug, charming as ever, but he doesn’t buy it for a fucking second.

“Just a feeling,” he murmurs, tilting his cheek into a fist, drinking in your drowsy look. You’re staring back, blatantly, your bottom lip caught between your teeth, lashes long and fluttering as you drag your eyes over his face.

He doesn’t know when your face got so close, or who kisses who, but his hand is sliding around the back of your neck, and his tongue is tasting yours. You grip his wrist and moan softly against his lips, and he can’t help curling his fingers into the hair at the nape of your neck, tugging softly. Everything other than you and him is drowned out from the world, and for all the moping and pining and self-hatred Ukai has felt in the past few weeks--past few _months_ \--he realizes that there’s some kind of peace right here with you.

You make a sound and suddenly pull away. “Fuck, wait, no--” You stand, shoving yourself up from the table. Your hands go to your face, fingers once more digging into your shut eyes. You press yourself up against his fridge. “Fuck, what the fuck am I _doing?_ ”

Ukai sits, hand still raised where he’d been cupping your face, and blinks up at you in a stunned daze. You take a deep breath, watery eyes fluttering open. They skitter past him towards the man on his couch that, honestly, he forgot was there, and the realization strikes him.

“Fuck, I’m sorry--” You’re shaking your head, hands waving, but you’re not looking at him, and Ukai can’t stand that. He can’t stand you avoiding him anymore.

“God, what the fuck?” You hiss, rubbing your hands over your face. You take a breath that sounds alarming to the blonde, and he rises quickly after you. His intention is to comfort you, despite what happens, but he freezes when your hands come out and shove at his chest, keeping him away from you. “No.”

He freezes, pulls back, skin burning where you touched him even through his shirt. Your wiping quickly at your eyes, sniffling and glancing back at your poor, dead to the world boyfriend, snoring peacefully.

Ukai doesn’t know what to say, and simply watches you struggle.

“I _can’t_ keep doing this.” Your voice is thick with emotion and you look like you’re about to fall apart. “I can’t keep...keep letting my feelings for you _ruin_ me.”

Keishin feels like he’s about to be sick, watching you struggling to breathe past the tears he knows you want to let out. He keeps his distance, even though everything inside of him tells him to comfort you and hold you.

You sniffle and wipe your cheeks, taking a slow and steadying breath before finally, _finally_ looking at him.

“You get why this can’t keep happening, right?” You choke out, eyes watering and bright and desperate. He nods silently, shoving his fists into his pockets. His pockets feel like well-deserved shackles, weighing his hands down and long-overdue. “You can’t keep trying to--to get the best of both worlds. You either be with me and you get it or you aren’t with me and stop acting like these things can still happen!”

Your rejection, while warranted and logical, still burns him. Like you’ve put his own cigarette out on his heart. Just beneath his own self-hatred he feels anger, anger he can’t quite define but with sake and beer in his blood, is harder to repress.

“It’s not like you even like him!” He hisses back, taking a step forward, gesturing towards your completely knocked out boyfriend. “You make it so fucking obvious you don’t want anything to do with him! You might as well find someone who makes you actually fucking happy--”

“Well I thought I _had!_ ” You interrupt, your eyes wide with meaning, your almost hysterical laughter pointed and sharp. You twist your hand and dig the stubborn cherry deeper through his chest. His face hurts and he’s breathing hard.

He stumbles over his words, the fire in him doused effectively. “Y-You know why we--”

“ _Can’t_ ,” you drawl, your tone sour and sarcastic. “We _can’t_ , we _shouldn’t_ , we _won’t_ , it’ll never _happen_.” You shake your head, refusing to look at him. “I fucking _get it_.” Keishin flinches back two steps at the quiet malice in your voice, gripping the back of the chair he’d just been seated in.

“If that’s how it has to be, fine!” You tell him, voice loud in his tiny apartment, uncaring if your boyfriend wakes up now or not. “But if you can’t, then you have to _stop_. _I_ stopped, so _you_ stop, too. Stop coming to me, stop holding my hand. Stop hugging me and kissing me. I even got a fucking boyfriend and it wasn’t enough to stop you unless it’s one of your fucking _friends._ ” Your face scrunches under the weight of your hurt, tears sparkling quick and fleeting down your face. “You can’t even respect me enough to respect _my_ relationships, but you’ll take Takinoue’s heart to your fucking grave and stomp all over m-mine!”

Ukai hunches under the accusations of your words, eyes pinned to the floor. You’re breathing heavy, sniffling and muttering curses under your breath. His ears are ringing from your anger, from the way his heart is racing out of fear and shame. He feels like he’s drowning in your hurt, like your words filled up all the space in his tiny kitchen and he’s run out of room to breathe without it piling down his throat and filling his lungs with their truth.

He lifts his head when you stride past him, snatching up your purse by your boyfriend’s feet. You dig around inside before pulling out a wad of cash and tossing it down on the small table. “Here. For when he wakes up and needs to get home. I--”

You don’t spare Keishin even a glance, staring down at the sleeping man on his couch. You pause at his door, gripping the handle. You stand with your back to his home, like maybe there’s something else you wanted to say. But you don’t. “Bye.”

You slam the door on your way out, only picking your shoes up from the genkan, needing to leave so badly that you don’t even take the time to put them on, and Keishin is left with nothing but the boyfriend you don’t want and the feelings for you that have done nothing but cause pain.

He hates your absence in his life. It feels more permanent than before your fight. He sits around unhappy and smoking in the store, and then in the field, and then at the bar, and you’re apparently doing just fine. He finds himself falling back into his old thoughts, that it’s better this way and that you deserve better than him. He’s taken to silence whenever Takinoue or Shimada try to bring you up to him, and eventually they stop entirely, though it doesn’t stop them from talking about you _while_ he’s around.

“Did she finally break up with that guy?” Takinoue rasps past his cigarette. Keishin’s heart stutters in his chest, but he doesn’t lift his eyes from the burning coal of his own cigarette.

“Yup. A while ago, I think,” Shimada confirms, cheek squished against the table top. “Said she wasn’t really into him.”

Ukai snorts, lips curling with bitter amusement around the filter, and it goes unnoticed.

The next day, Takeda Ittetsu offers him the chance to help train the Karasuno volleyball team. On a whim, he takes it, not planning to stick around very long. He’s gruff around the edges with them, and he thinks that it’s only going to remind him of the fact he was a bench warmer for his grandfather, never good enough or willing enough to put in the effort to be considered for the court. But...

It’s surprisingly fulfilling. Not only is it a good distraction and keeps him completely busy from thinking about you or hearing his friends talk about you, but it reignites a feeling of self-worth in him that he didn’t realize he needed. Separate from you and from his family and friends, he helps to build up the vibrant and talented players before him, cultivating their skills and considering their needs to bring confidence and assurance to every member of the team, even the ones who sit on the benches like he did.

It brings _him_ confidence, too. Another surprising but pleasant outcome. As much as he sometimes feels like a fuck up, volleyball is something he knows like the back of his hand. Playing every few weekends with the Neighborhood Association has not only helped keep him in shape, but he knows what he’s talking about when he corrects mistakes or writes out game plans or studies the statistics Shimizu compiles for him. It’s helped him connect with his grandfather, asking for advice and arguing over tactics with the older, bed-ridden man. Even if he’s exhausted, he’s beginning to feel like he’s standing up a little straighter, feels a little bigger and broader in the world than he had before.

He’s surprised to see you at the first game. He’s been working almost non-stop, tiring himself out too much to stay up at night wondering, talking almost exclusively volleyball with his friends who are eager to help. But there you are, up in the stands next to Takinoue and Shimada, and Ukai stands a little straighter, tugs on his empty earlobes with nerves, tries his best not to glance up to see your reactions to his team. He can’t quite make out all of your features, but you look good, and he gets a rush when you cheer loudly, like you’re cheering for _him_ , too.

But like his team, he keeps his head in the game, makes sure they get the direction they need from him. He can’t afford to be distracted, even if his heart throbs in his chest for your presence.

The first game you don’t stick around to see him. His heart aches but...he doesn’t text you, he doesn’t call you. He sees you leaving as he’s walking up to Takinoue and Shimada, and he doesn’t call out. He just watches you go. Because he knows it’s the right thing to do. You don’t stick around for many of them, and he stops expecting you to. He gives you your space, maybe a wave if you catch his eye, but he doesn’t force anything. He doesn’t feel like he has the right.

Karasuno pulls out an admittedly surprising victory against the giants of Aoba Johsai. An unprecedented victory that leads to only more unknowns, but as of right now, the excitement of the win, the proof of their efforts, has the entire court screaming, Ukai and Takeda included.

Though harder opponents await them, tonight was a cause for celebration really unlike any other. For the first time in a while, he goes out with his friends, and _all_ of his friends. You’re there for what feels like the first time in forever, and it’s simultaneously like nothing ever happened between you and like there’s some sort of blooming re-beginning. It’s been a few months since he really got to talk to you, and is it a little vain to think he’s changed in a way that might let him reach up even to the edge of the pedestal he placed you upon? Or maybe you’re just a little more down to his level now after your time apart.

He’s not quite sure what it is, but when he looks at you laughing with Takinoue across the table, he doesn’t feel the same dreadful nerves as before. He feels a wanting warmth, a respect and hesitant desire to go back to the closeness he had before with you. Without so much of the fear this time.

You take a hearty sip of your beer, and your eyes meet his over the rim of your mug. He blinks and gives you a smile, one that grows into an amused grin as you quickly wipe beer away from your chin before smiling back.

Takinoue bumps his shoulder into Ukai’s as everyone exits the bar, leaning in close to quietly ask, “Okay, but are you gonna _do it_ this time?” He wheezes a laugh when Keishin playfully shoves him away, but glances back meaningfully before announcing his departure, waving and strolling off down the street, the others dispersing similarly. Until it’s just the two of you, walking home in the same direction like it used to be and yet so different.

“Have I told you congratulations yet? I always left the other games early, um…” You trail off, but Ukai shakes his head silently. “Well. Congratulations. It’s been really awesome watching Karasuno work so hard and get better and better.” You look up at him, shoulder brushing his own. You deserve this.”

He groans at your cheesy words, making you laugh. “I guess,” he sighs bashfully, scratching at the back of his warm neck. “It’s mostly the team. They’re all incredible and talented.”

“You are, too, Kei,” you insist. He just shrugs, cheeks feeling warm from your praise. “They needed a good coach, and you’re a good coach.” You say it so matter-of-fact he can only laugh.

“Or I was just a convenience.”

“Then why did you stick with it?” You cast him a playful glance. “Not that I ever thought you couldn’t do it, just that Takinoue was telling him how much you were complaining.” Your tone is light, a little playful, but there’s a seriousness to your gaze that’s probing. “If you really didn’t like it, why did you stay?”

Ukai heaves another great sigh, shoulders coming up before they relax. “You remember that Coach Nekomata guy from Nekoma? He pissed me off. That’s why I stayed.”

You laugh, and he smiles. As much as it had actually angered him, it’s funnier now in retrospect. He watches you laugh, warmth settling over his heart.

“Well, I’m glad he pissed you off, then.” He arches a brow curiously. You arch yours back. “Coaching looks good on you, Kei. You deserve this.” It had been cheesy the first time, but you repeating the sentiment felt different somehow. Like you wanted him to know the truth of your words, no matter how awkward they made him feel or how much he wondered about whether he deserved them or not.

But goddamn does it do something to him, either way.

_Fuck._ “You wanna come back to my place?” It’s out of his mouth before he can think about how absolutely stupid his question is, how inconsiderate and selfish it is. He lamely gestures over his shoulder once he realizes that you’re both standing in the middle of the street between your parents’ house and the store.

“Yes.” He blinks at your quick, breathless answer, gazing down at you in wonder, feeling his heart kick up in a quicker rhythm. The air thickens with anticipation and excitement. Keishin fumbles with his keys on his doorstep when he glances back at you to see you bouncing almost impatiently on your toes, eyes wide with an expression so hopeful he blushes pink.

“Um, do you want--?” He motions to his kitchen after you’re both shoeless and standing much too close to each other for friends just hanging out.

“No,” you answer primly, pawing at his chest. He hitches you closer, leaning down and you meet him halfway for a frenzied, rushed, aggressive kiss. His arms wrap around your middle and pick you up, carrying you to the couch where your heated kisses continue upon collapsing into one another. His hairband is lost, your own hairstyle mussed and undone by his pulling fingers.

It’s with a wave of emotion that he realizes that not having you in his life has made it significantly less colorful and bright. His devotion to his work and to Karasuno was, perhaps, all in preparation for this moment, this realization that even if things aren’t meant to be between you, it hurts more to never have you around than to possibly, maybe, for a moment, have you like this. Like he could have you all the time, if he really wanted to.

And like a fucking tidal wave, threatening to wash him out to sea, back out into old thoughts and old feelings, Keishin’s body winds up around yours with an inexplicable anxiety.

“I can’t,” he whispers against your mouth, hugging you closer.

He can feel you stiffen, hands pushing on his shoulders. He doesn’t let you get very far. You look defeated in so many untold ways that his heart aches. “Wait--”

You hide your face in his neck, but you’re still pressing against his hold. “Why not?” Your whisper is thick with emotion and hurt that he’s caused. His fingers crumple your shirt to keep you in place, his eyes burning with his own tears of regret.

“I can’t stop wanting you, but it feels like I shouldn’t,” he hisses into your shoulder. “I-I know Takinoue still loves you, and--”

You scoff, shoving back to sit on his knees. Your eyes are red and leaking, your face drenched in not just tears but in irritation. “Takinoue and I are _done._ He’s an adult. So are you, and so am I. And maybe he still loves me in some way, but that was _six years ago_ , Keishin. What is it really? Why do you keep holding yourself back?”

Your words sting him like a slap in the face, his own self-deprecation coming forth like a rushing wave at your question.

You push up off of him. “No, wait, please?” His hands grip your waist, pulling you back down. You swing around, landing with a bounce on the cushion next to him. You wipe quickly at your eyes, shaking your head.

“I know,” he admits, choking on the whispered words. “I _know_ , I just--I don’t want--” He cuts himself off, gazing up into your heavy stare. The truth tumbles out, smashing through the wall he’s built in his throat to keep the truth contained. “I’m not good enough for you.”

Your eyes narrow, brows coming down in confusion. “Keishin--”

He hates the burn in his eyes that give way to tears, and he sniffs, shaking his head while he holds you in place at arms-length, like he always has. “I...I don’t really do anything. I help my parents out but, I don’t really have a--a _career?_ I barely have a job _really._ I’m an asshole, a-and I’m lazy, and--”

Your hands squish his cheeks, drawing his head up from where he’d dropped his chin in his shame. Your eyes meet his, a resolute determination in your eye that makes his heart skip a beat and his hands squeeze your sides.

“Keishin,” you whisper. “You’re not any of that. You are--” You laugh, almost in disbelief, and he doesn’t like the pity in your eyes but it’s not really _of_ him, it’s _for_ him, even if it’s pride wounding. “You are _amazing._ You help your family because you care about them and their health even if it hurts your own. You care about your friends to the point you deny yourself what you want just to give them the _chance_ of being happy. You accepted the coaching opportunity because you wanted to, and because you like volleyball and you remember what it was like to want to win. You work harder than anyone I know, Keishin.”

He blinks up at you quickly, rather baffled by your statements. Your thumbs stroke over his cheeks, and he feels wet warmth rubbed away.

You grin, the first _real_ smile he’s seen on your face in a long time, even if it's a little sad. “And yeah, maybe you’re a little bit of a prick, but you make me laugh. So. I can overlook that sometimes.”

Keishin groans, though he can’t help the upward twitch of the corners of his mouth. He tempers his emotions quickly, reaching up to squeeze your wrists. He doesn’t know what to say, and chooses to avoid your soft gaze instead, his heart aching.

You say his name again, and he’s _missed_ the sound, truly appreciates the way it sounds rolling off your tongue. He forgot just how good it sounds for you to call for him. “Keishin. You’re the only one holding yourself back. I love you, but I’m tired of hoping and waiting. So if you can be with me, because you _want_ to be with me...do it.”

He almost laughs.

Is it that easy?

There’s a heartstopping silence that fills the space between you, breathless and tense and when his heart starts up again it's a furious beat that stings his face against your gentle palms.

“I want to, I want you,” he whispers, cinching his arms around your middle, practically yanking you back onto him, leaning back into the corner of the couch so he can feel the full weight of you for what feels like the _first_ time, that feels _real_ , that he doesn’t shy away from.

“Then do it,” you challenge again, crawling over him. “Have me. Let me have you.”

“God, I’ve wanted you so bad,” he bemoans, burying his wet face in your neck, hiding the emotional scrunch that cuts like a knife behind his eyes and his nose. You sink against him, into him, going limp in everything but the way you hug him back.

He can hear the thickness of your own feelings in your tone, feels the hitch in your breath of your own emotional overflowing. “You’ve had me.”

**Author's Note:**

> comments/kudos are life
> 
> follow me on tumblr @ saetyrn9


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